Short answers, pulled from the story.
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio dedicated his treatise to the emperor Caesar Augustus around 30 BC. This Roman architect and military engineer wrote during a period of significant political change in Rome.
The ten books cover theory, materials, machinery, and engineering principles across diverse subjects including water supply systems, surveying instruments, and mechanical devices like cranes and pulleys. Vitruvius included mathematics, astronomy, meteorology, and medicine within his architectural framework.
Florentine humanist Poggio Bracciolini found a manuscript copy in the Abbey library of Saint Gall Switzerland in 1416. He publicized this discovery to Renaissance thinkers who were reviving interest in classical heritage.
Fra Giovanni Giocondo produced the first illustrated version with woodcuts in Venice during 1511. Cesare Cesariano released an Italian translation with new illustrations in Como in 1521 as a Milanese friend of Bramante.
Morris H. Morgan translated the complete text into English for Harvard University scholars in 1914. Project Gutenberg now makes this fully available alongside Internet Archive digital scans of seventy-three editions.